


Conjugation

by Mithen



Category: DCU Animated
Genre: Flirting, Language Kink, Languages and Linguistics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-15
Updated: 2010-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-14 17:24:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/151679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithen/pseuds/Mithen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce decides to take advantage of a slow Monitor Duty by practicing his Kryptonian with Kal-El.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conjugation

_“I smell your floweriness.”_

Superman turned from the banks of monitors to blink at Batman, who looked at back at him impassively. “I beg your pardon?” Clark said.

 _“I smell your floweriness, **”**_ Bruce growled, annoyance lacing his tone, and Clark realized suddenly that he was speaking Kryptonian.

“Oh!” Clark managed to suppress a laugh. “You mean _Thorysa tha-lyroshiao ul._” Amusement aside, he was rather flattered; he’d sent Batman all his files on the Kryptonian language a month ago, and hadn’t expected Bruce get to studying them so quickly.

Batman merely crossed his arms and glowered. “That’s what I said.”

“No, you used _va-,_ the case marker for information gained via sense of smell, rather than _tha-_ , the one for sense of sight. And I assume you meant _lyroshiao,_ ‘boredom,’ rather than _lyroshio_ **,** which is, um, ‘floweriness.’ The vowel sounds at the end are very hard to distinguish for most Terrans,” he added politely. _“And yes, I’m a bit bored.”_

 _“We can practice Kryptonian?”_

Clark grimaced involuntarily. “Sorry, it’s just...you’re using unguilded language.” Batman’s glower deepened. “See, each of the five guilds has a different way of speaking depending on whether the conversational partner is the same guild or not. And there are subtle differences between each guild--so religious guild members would speak slightly differently to a member of the science or the artisan’s guild. You’re speaking uninflected Kryptonian, which is used when addressing mixed crowds or children.”

“Is that offensive??”

“No, no! It’s just...impersonal, you know? It sounds very distant and formal.”

 _”And you want us to be close,”_ Bruce said, nodding. _“I as well. But I have not a guild.”_

Clark hesitated, but it didn’t seem quite the time to mention that Bruce had accidentally used a word for “close” that had rather more intimate connotations than what he had wanted. _“True. Nor do I, really, as I never had a chance to go through the guilding ceremony. But I probably would have chosen Science, like my father.”_ He paused, casting his eyes up in thought. _“And you don’t seem a very likely fit for Artisan, Religious, Labor, or Military.”_

 _”Then I shall belong to you,”_ Bruce said.

Clark coughed. ” _You shall belong to the same guild as I_, yes,” he corrected discreetly. Bruce did seem to have a gift for making compromising mistakes in Kryptonian--this one even more intimate than the one before. The implications of “belong,” _aorrotazhia,_ were...well, quite personal. Clark couldn’t help but remember for a moment certain lurid fantasies he had indulged in from time to time in which _aorrotazhia_ had featured prominently. In the hortative mood of urging or strong encouragement. And in a particular husky growl.

He pulled his attention back to the task at hand with some effort and applied himself to teaching Bruce the intra-guild inflections. In an hour or so Bruce had the basics down--he still stumbled over some of the more obscure vowel sounds, but he was learning quickly.

“So if I wanted to talk about the Fortress I would say... _You have an exquisite mouth,” Bruce said._

“What? No, no.” Clark shook his head violently. “‘Fortress’ is _kiashimon_ , not _kiazhimon._ If you said _Masorezhu kiazhimon il_ you’d have to use the admirative mood that connotes sarcasm,” he said, laughing. “Actually, you might just want to use that mood as your default.”

“ _Maserezhu kiazhimon il?”_ Bruce said tentatively.

“Bruce!” Clark actually couldn’t continue for a moment, torn between laughter, horror, and embarrassment. “That’s the desiderative mood--you just said something like _‘How I desire your exquisite mouth.’_ ”

“Who ever heard of a language that marks its moods by changing the _middle_ of a word?” Bruce growled. _“That’s the sexiest thing ever, you are.”_

“ _stupidest_! And leave out the second-person pronoun, for the love of Rao!” sputtered Clark. _“You mean _stupidest_ thing ever!”_

Bruce looked at him for a long moment. Then he shook his head. _“I begin to think you really _are_ the stupidest thing ever, if you’re not going to notice outrageous flirting when it practically bites your toes,”_ he said.

In flawless, unaccented, idiomatic Kryptonian.

 _”Just how long was I going to have to keep that up?”_ Bruce complained, using perfect intra-guild language with a highly intimate and coaxing inflection, touched with just a bit of sarcasm. ” _Do I have to actually demand you kiss me? Or beg for it? Mind you, I’ve learned those verb forms as well,”_ he noted silkily. _”Just to be safe.”_

Clark couldn’t seem to decide whether to glare, laugh, or turn bright red with embarrassment; he ended up doing all three at once, more or less. “Stop it, Bruce,” he growled. “I get it, you learned Kryptonian, congratulations. You’re very impressive. But there’s no need to mock me.”

Bruce sighed, a long and aggrieved sound. Then he reached up and pulled off his cowl. His hair was in disarray and there were very slight laugh crinkles at the corners of his stormy blue eyes. He looked very human and not at all like a daunting creature of the night. _“Kal,”_ he said in the Kryptonian mood for asserting a completely truthful statement, the most shatteringly honest mode of communication the language had, _“I did not learn this impossible, beautiful, throat-shredding language in order to tease you, enjoyable as that may be. I am...”_ He stopped and grimaced, seeming to struggle for words--a rare sight in any language. _“I would like to...to tell you that...”_

A red blur zipped into the room. “Hey, what’s that? Are you speaking Kryptonian? It sounds really cool! What’s he saying, Supes?” Flash looked from one hero to the other, a curious grin on his face.

“I think that Batman is...trying to ask me if I could give him some private lessons in Kryptonian,” Superman said slowly. “So that he’ll be able to express himself more fluently.”

“Yes,” said Bruce, a flicker of something like relief and something like chagrin crossing his face. “It would give us a tactical advantage when communicating while being observed by a third party.” He pulled his cowl back on. “Sometime when you’re free.”

“I get off monitor duty in five hours,” Clark said as Batman headed for the door. _”But I have to warn you,”_ he said, slipping back into Kryptonian, _”That if I hear you speaking Kryptonian again and we’re alone together, I am going to kiss you.”_

Batman paused as the door hissed open, his back still to Flash and Superman. Then he turned his head slightly so Clark could see his smirk. _”I’ll be at the Fortress in five hours and three minutes,_ ” he said in the most caressing, insinuating form of the language, one full of promises.

The door slid shut behind him and Clark realized he’d been holding his breath. He released it rather gustily and Flash shot him a sympathetic smile. “I don’t envy you, Big Blue. He’s got to be one hell of a difficult student.”

Clark cleared his throat in a way that could be taken for assent, because he wasn’t sure he could trust his voice just yet. “I guess I’d better start making some lesson plans,” he said after a moment.

“Lesson plans!” Flash snickered. “Will you give him little gold stars for doing his homework?”

Clark laughed, but his thoughts were elsewhere, planning vocabulary lists and grammar tips.

 _Kolizhizh_ , to kiss.

 _Rywerr,_ to undress.

 _Zhaorryl_ , to love.

 _To love_ , in all its forms. All its tenses. All its terrifying moods and glorious inflections.

 _I love. You love. We love. Let us love. Love me._

 _My love.  
_


End file.
